Hobby Lobby founder Mart Green has followed thorugh on his offer to bail out the financially strapped university.

In the wake of ORU president Richard Roberts' resignation, Green offered in late November to give the school $70 million, dependent on a number of reforms. He donated $8 million immediately, without strings attached; yesterday's gift of $62 million signaled that ORU's board and Green had struck a deal on the proposed changes.

Roberts, the son of ORU founder Oral Roberts, resigned on November 23 amid lawsuits alleging financial mismanagement and lavish personal purchases with school funds. The school was $52.5 million in debt when he stepped down.

Green's gift is expected to pay off the debt and enable the school to invest in future improvements and growth. The key change agreed upon was the replacement of the previous board of regents, largely made up of charismatic celebrities, with a 16-person board of trustees chaired by Green. The Green family also wanted to be sure that the lawsuits facing the school could "be settled on a fair and reasonable basis for the university," according to their proposal.

"Heavenly Father, we thank you for this wonderful gift," university trustee Scott Howard prayed during the chapel service where Green officially presented the checks. "We pray for the future of Oral Roberts University, God, that the mission will go forth, . . . the vision will be strengthened, Lord, going forth in the future for generations to come.”

Posted by Madison Trammel at January 31, 2008 4:14PM | Comments (8)

Note: CleanFlicks has disputed much of the initial media reports cited here. See our update.

The co-founder of CleanFlicks, a video editing service once used by many Christians, has been arrested in Utah for allegedly paying a 14-year-old girl for sex.

Daniel Thompson, who ran CleanFlicks till the courts shut it down in 2006, had more recently operated Flix Club, a family-friendly edited-movie video business in Orem, Utah. He was arrested last Thursday on two charges of forcible sexual abuse and two charges of forcible sexual activity with a 14-year-old. Thompson is out on bail.

Thompson’s business partner at Flix Club, Isaac Lifferth, was also arrested on similar charges.

Thompson reportedly told police that Flix Club, which carried videos in which objectionable content had been edited out, was only a front, and that he and Lifferth were also involved in making and distributing porn movies.

Flix Club was forced to close last year after a federal court ruled that movie-editing businesses violated U.S. copyright law when they "sanitized" films by removing nudity, sex, profanity, and other objectionable content.

According to police reports, Thompson and Lifferth allegedly paid two 14-year-old girls $20 each to perform oral sex, and Lifferth allegedly had intercourse with a 16-year-old girl multiple times, including in the offices at Flix Club.

"I would have never suspected there was other stuff going on," the father of the 16-year-old told the Daily Herald in Provo. "I guess I didn't know Daniel. He always seemed like a real decent guy."

Obviously not. USA Today blogged several news items about the story under the title, "Clean Flicks, dirty man?"

Ironically, and perhaps prophetically, Thompson’s MySpace page includes the tagline, "Somewhere in the valley between Good and Evil." On that same page, for his "status"—where most people write something like "single" or "married"—Thompson wrote "Swinger."

Posted by Mark Moring at January 30, 2008 1:26PM | Comments (11)

While Florida seems to indicate a major shift in the Republican presidential race, among voters who identified themselves as evangelical or born again, last night's results look somewhat familiar, with Romney, Huckabee, and McCain all bunched up again.

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 30, 2008 1:01PM | Comments (9)

In the vast canon of analysis of evangelical voters, John Green’s interview with Pew Forum is speculative but helpful. There are the things we already know (e.g. Giuliani has an “issues problem” for evangelicals), but also some thinking past Super Tuesday — and before George W.

Green sees three real contenders for the majority of the evangelical vote: Huckabee, Romney, and McCain.

But are any Democrats likely to snag many evangelicals? Obama’s comfort with speaking about his faith seems to give some evangelicals the warm fuzzies, Green says, and Democrats may get a greater proportion of young evangelicals this election.

“A lot of the anecdotal evidence from the campaign trail suggests that these are folks that may like to see a different relationship between evangelicals and the Republican Party,” Green said, explaining that McCain’s rocky relationship with Religious Right leaders Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell might not blight his campaign.

To truly get a majority of evangelicals, Green says, a candidate needs three characteristics: personal appeal, electability, and issue positions that are “minimally comfortable.” Presumably, it’s Democratic issue positions that continue to push evangelicals to the Republican candidates.

Asked about how Huckabee’s evangelical support would be dispersed if he withdrew, Green responds:

The fact that Huckabee has come this far with relatively little organization and a real lack of funds is because of the enthusiasm of some evangelicals at the grassroots level who have been campaigning for him on their own initiative. That kind of enthusiasm is difficult to shift from one candidate to another.

It’s at least plausible that if Huckabee’s followers stay involved in the process, they may find John McCain more congenial than some of the other GOP candidates.

Does this mean that most evangelicals will vote Republican next November? Or will they remain divided and unpredictable in a field where every candidate seems to have two but not three of the characteristics they’re looking for?

Posted by Susan Wunderink at January 29, 2008 1:51PM | Comments (13)

Christian conservatives are often lambasted these days for fixating on abortion and homosexuality, as if we have sexual hang-ups. Tony Campolo has said for years that the Religious Right has “hijacked” the Christian faith over such issues. Yesterday at the National Cathedral, Rick Warren, who said the country needs liberals and conservatives, lamented that Christians still are viewed as only “right wing.” (I'm not quite sure how that is still possible, given that Pastor Warren is arguably the nation’s most prominent evangelical himself.) Critics point out that the call to discipleship also involves addressing things like environmental stewardship, poverty, and racism. And in that they are right.

But with the persistent push in our culture toward both abortion and homosexual marriage, what would these critics have Christian conservatives do? Earlier this month, Al Gore came out in favor of gay marriage, stating, “Gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women — to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage, and I don’t understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage. . ..”

Are we not allowed to answer him? To abondon the argument is to lose the argument. And we have good reasons, beyond Scripture itself. But we must make these arguments as gently and lovingly as possible, never forgetting that how we make our case counts almost as much in today's culture as the substance of our case.

Pastor Warren is calling for a “second reformation” that includes reconciliation in the church. That’s great. Let’s all stop calling each other names and agree to do whatever work that God has called us to ... with grace and truth.

--------------------------------------

UPDATE:
Pastor Warren's remarks can be heard by clicking on the following link. They are worth listening to in full.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at January 28, 2008 12:07PM | Comments (18)

Nathan Gibbs has a sad story on his blog about the death of his childhood friend, Benson Krause, and a remembrance of the music they made together. Their band, "The Third Half," included many of the guys I grew up a few years behind, and Nathan's post recalls an infamous moment at our church, though I was too young to remember it as much more than folklore.

One Sunday morning, his father Jim was preaching. He spoke about being corrupted by the world and used his youngest son Timothy’s innocence as an example. He said Tim was sitting in the pew making gestures with his hands and wound up being fascinated with his middle finger. Jim explained how it meant nothing outside the context of the world’s negative influence. What he did next is something no one in the audience that day will forget. He rested both wrists on the pulpit with two middle fingers extended upward. “Does this offend you?” he asked.

My childhood church was part of the Church of Christ denomination, which is, coincidentally, on the opposite end of the theological spectrum from the ultra-liberal United Church of Christ. No music with worship, no women in leadership, no heaven without baptism. And for many people the answer was obviously yes, and it led to the Krauses unceremonious return to Chicago.

The congregation's response does not surprise me years later -- many Americans, regardless of religion, would be bothered by such a display -- but it makes me wonder why we find certain words, or more aptly, certain gestures, offensive? Who decided that pointing at someone with your middle finger was a greater curse than wagging your index at them?

This article was cross-posted at The God Blog.

Posted by Brad Greenberg at January 27, 2008 4:40PM | Comments (13)

Not much religion news out of the exit poll data last night. Once again, Democrats were not asked if they consider themselves born again or evangelical, even though Republicans were asked the question last week. The only religion question was church attendance:

The speeches had a bit of religion talk too. Obama talked about the principalities and powers (not his phrase) he's battling against:

What we've seen in these last weeks is that we're also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation. It's a politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon, a politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us, the assumption that young people are apathetic, the assumption that Republicans won't cross over, the assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor and that the poor don't vote, the assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate, whites can't support the African-American candidate, blacks and Latinos cannot come together.

We are here tonight to say that that is not the America we believe in. ... I know that when people say we can't overcome all the big money and influence in Washington, I think of that elderly woman who sent me a contribution the other day, an envelope that had a money order for $3.01 along with a verse of Scripture tucked inside the envelope.

Obama ended his speech with what he called a creed: the "timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words: Yes, we can."

Obama didn't invoke God, but Clinton did, briefly:

Many of us, as I look around this crowd, know that we were given blessings and opportunities that we inherited, didn't we? And those were the results of the hard work of our parents, our grandparents, and people we never met, people who defend our freedoms, people who created the businesses that employed us, who pushed down the barriers that prevented any of us from fulfilling our God-given potential.

She may have said more, but TV viewers didn't get to see it since the networks cut her off. Edwards, at least, got in his last line, which included a shout-out to the Almighty: "God bless you all and thank you for your support and thank you for being here and thank you for your voice."

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 27, 2008 1:18PM | Comments (11)

By now, you’ve likely heard about the “First Take” co-host’s drunken rant at a January 11 roast for ESPN colleagues Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic. Jacobson, it appears, got carried away in denigrating Golic’s alma mater, Notre Dame, and dropped F-bombs on the school, Touchdown Jesus (the famous mural on Notre Dame’s campus), and Jesus himself.

Groups like the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, the Catholic League, and the Christian Defense Coalition have been quick to point out the offensiveness of the statement, comparing it to bigoted statements about Jews, Muslims, or African Americans. While ESPN suspended Jacobson for a week, the Christian Defense Coalition’s director, the Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, called for more. “Her comments are so outrageous and inflammatory that the only proper response for ESPN is to immediately release her,” said Mahoney. “Suspension is simply not enough and sends a message that ESPN tolerates this kind of behavior and speech.”

Personally, I can’t see that firing Jacobson accomplishes much, besides showing that Christians can flex their muscles and get people fired just as well as any other group. “Bless those who persecute you,” Paul writes in Romans 12:14, “bless and do not curse.” As followers of Christ, we’d be better served by an ESPN-arranged meeting between Jacobson and a group of local pastors. She could apologize in person—something she’s already done in a prepared statement—and they could explain, with grace and understanding, why they accept her apology in the name of the one she denigrated.

But all that is less important, to my mind, than an issue raised indirectly by the Chicago Tribune’s Manya Brachear. She wrote yesterday on her blog, The Seeker: “Jacobson works for a sports channel, and sports rivalries can get heated. Should she have restrained herself? Or, when you’re up against a religious institution, is their chief sponsor fair game?”

That Jesus, or any religious figure, can be treated as part of the hype and hysteria surrounding a sports team—something like the Dallas Cowboys’ cheerleaders or Duke’s Cameron Crazies—indicates something unbalanced about our country’s sports obsession. This is an obsession I share, so I am speaking as much to myself here as to anyone else. In CT’s September 2007 cover story, “Why We Love Football,” Eric Miller pointed out that sports can become a channel of common grace, of community and fellowship and shared dreams. Yet he also noted the ever-present temptation of fans to worship the teams they follow.

John Calvin wrote that “the human heart is a factory of idols.” The last time I checked, taking the Lord’s name in vain was a sin, a breaking of the Third Commandment. But so, too, is having any other gods before the one true God, the subject of the First Commandment. The underlying issue in Jacobson’s curse wasn’t blasphemy, but idolatry. In that failing, she certainly isn’t alone.

Posted by Madison Trammel at January 24, 2008 3:04PM | Comments (8)

Time will tell whether Democratic efforts will actually impact evangelical voter habits, but one Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist seems a bit skeptical.

David Horsey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer believes that at least those in Colorado will stick to the Republicans. Horsey attended New Life Church, formerly led by Ted Haggard. After a lengthy description of a megachurch worship service, he describes his talk with New Life's associate pastor Rob Brendle.

The pastor thinks the country needs "a morally principled diplomat in the White House" like Mitt Romney, not a religious leader like Mike Huckabee. Nothing would be worse for Christian conservatives than a candidate who scared the rest of America with too much focus on his faith, he said.

The cartoonist then wanted to know, "What about the Democrats?" since the Democrats have been making an emphasis on religion in their campaigns. Horsey writes that the pastor laughed and said he'd seen it before. He was in a meeting with John Kerry in 2004 where the former candidate pulled a New Testament. The pastor said nobody bought it then, and it won't work this year, either.

"If Hillary has suddenly started reading the Scriptures, then I'm glad she's reading the Scriptures," Brendle said, but evangelicals are sticking with the Republicans.

However, Clinton has long been in the Methodist tradition, and as President Bush's former speech writer Michael Gerson wrote back in the fall, she is neither secular nor awkward about her faith. Either way, I don't think anybody believes evangelicals will be overwhelmingly wooed to vote for a Democrat, but many are pleased that the Democrats are using the words faith and politics in the same sentence.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at January 23, 2008 4:49PM | Comments (9)

Republican Presidential candidate Fred Thompson dropped out of the presidential race Tuesday, the New York Times writes.

Mr. Thompson, 65, rode in to the campaign powered by the high hopes of conservative Republicans who were disappointed with the field of candidates and hoped that Mr. Thompson — a television actor and former counsel to the Watergate committee — could rally conservatives behind him. But Mr. Thompson instead brought a phlegmatic style to the campaign trail, and his candidacy never took off.

Even though Thompson appealed to some social conservatives and received an endorsement from the National Right to Life, he never drew significant numbers. He entered the race late in the game, told voters he didn't attend church and said he would not talk about religion on the campaign.

He placed third in South Carolina, apparently taking votes away from Mike Huckabee. Unless Huckabee decides to campaign more heavily in Florida, Thompson's exit from the race will likely help Mitt Romney in Florida.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at January 22, 2008 2:14PM | Comments (2)

Most of the media coverage of evangelical voter behavior revolves around the Republican race, but it looks like Sen. Barack Obama is still interested in grabbing the "evangelical vote." During last night's CNN debate, he spoke about how the Democrats should go after evangelicals.

"I think there have been times -- there have been times where our Democratic Party did not reach out as aggressively as we could to evangelicals, for example, because the assumption was, well, they don't agree with us on choice, or they don't agree with us on gay rights, and so we just shouldn't show up.

And when you don't show up, if you're not going to church, then you're not talking to church folk. And that means that people have a very right-wing perspective in terms of what faith means and of defining our faith.

And as somebody who believes deeply in the precepts of Jesus Christ, particularly treating the least of these in a way that he would, that it is important for us to not concede that ground. Because I think we can go after those folks and get them."

This comment comes shortly after his campaign sent a mailer through South Carolina to debunk e-mail rumors that he is a Muslim. The mailer shows Obama with his head bowed in prayer and says that he will be guided by prayer when he's in office.

It's hard to tell if these attempts and previous ones are reaching evangelicals. As previously noted, the pollsters haven't asked Democrats the same self-identification questions as the Republicans.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at January 22, 2008 8:30AM | Comments (21)

What is a "cosmopolitan evangelical," and how does he or she differ from an everyday evangelical, if there is such a thing? Several sociologists have commented on a perceived shift in American evangelicalism's image, goals, and rhetoric, most notably Michael D. Lindsay, author of Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite. He thinks that if you want to see what this new breed of evangelical looks like, you only have to look as far as Mike Huckabee, who indisputably had the vote of conservative Christians to thank for his Iowa victory two weeks ago.

Huckabee, though quite comfortable with speaking publicly about his personal relationship with Christ, his conservative views on religious hot-button issues like gay marriage and abortion, and even God's providential role in his Iowa win, nonetheless differs from many conservative evangelicals before him, especially those in the Religious Right.

"I'm a conservative, but I'm not mad at anybody," Huckabee often says, and when once asked whether the Christian life was the best way of life, he answered, "Well it is for me..." but that he didn't want to come off as "judgmental, caustic or pushy." As David Brooks of The New York Times recently noted, "Huckabee is the first ironic evangelical on the national stage. He's funny, campy (see his Chuck Norris fixation) and he's not at war with modern culture." In other words, you won't hear Huckabee talking about his push to "take back America" anytime soon.

As last Saturday's South Carolina primary ended with Huckabee in second place behind John McCain by only a 3-percent margin, and Super Tuesday comes in two weeks, some pundits say Huckabee's success will rely largely on his ability to appeal to members of both the old and new guards of American evangelicalism, all the while appealing to non-evangelical American voters as well. As Lindsay writes on the blog The Imminent Frame,

Mike Huckabee must straddle the divide between the populists [old-guard evangelicals] and the cosmopolitans, convincing both that he is one of them. It’s a difficult balancing act, but Huckabee is singularly poised to unite both camps. Like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, he is able to exist on the margins of different groups and yet seem like an insider. To win, a candidate must appear as comfortable before factory workers as he is before titans of industry. Huckabee’s cosmopolitan faith helps him become all things to all people.

Jay Tolson, writing for U.S. News and World Report, echoes Lindsay's observation on the "Faith Matters" blog:

Whether Huckabee will learn to connect with a larger part of the electorate—or even see the need to do so—should become apparent in the coming primaries, particularly in Florida, a state with a strong core of evangelical voters but also a very diverse collection of other voters broadly representative of the American mix. . . . And how he comes through that trial may tell us as much about the new evangelicals as it does about Mike Huckabee.

Fortunately, the new evangelicals don't have to rely solely on a presidential win by Mike Huckabee to determine the strength of their voice in today's political arena.

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at January 21, 2008 3:40PM | Comments (11)

A USA Today headline: Barnes brings sexy back to 'Narnia'

Sheesh. I don't want sexy in Narnia. I just want Narnia the way Lewis imagined it.

And what do they mean "back" to Narnia? Did I miss the sexy the first time around? Did it leave? Was Mrs. Beaver really hot?

I'm already getting nervous -- and hoping that if it's not too late, director Andrew Adamson has read this..

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 21, 2008 1:38PM | Comments (3)

I read "Walking the Bible" on my flight to and from Israel last summer and thoroughly enjoyed it, and on my short blogroll I link to David Plotz' Blogging the Bible. Last week, I found on Slate that Plotz has returned with "Digging the Bible."

So, it's not exactly the Ark of the Covenant. In fact, it's not exactly much of anything—just a dirty shard of pottery the size of my big toe. But I found it. I had been scraping the floor of this Israeli cave when I spotted its sharp edge. I fished the piece out of the dirt and pushed on it, as instructed, to see if it crumbled. If it did, it was probably just the local limestone, which is as soft as a bar of soap. But my piece firmly resisted, so I brushed off the dirt until I could see smooth pottery, one side black, the other brick red. I'm the raider of the lost pot.

I hand it to my digging partner Ian Stern, the archaeologist in charge of this site. He glances at it and says, "Cooking pot. See the black part? That's where it carbonized. Probably 2,200 years old, time of the Maccabees"—the Jewish heroes of the Hanukkah story. He tosses my shard into a plastic collection bucket. "That's why this place is so great. It has instant gratification. There's a biblical connection. There's a Hanukkah connection. It takes it out of the realm of the abstract and makes it tangible. You can come here and dig up pottery from the time of Judah Maccabee. He fought a battle near here. Now, I'm not saying he ate out of that pot, but you see and hold this pottery, and he is not a fairytale figure anymore. He is real."

I've spent much of the last year blogging the Bible for Slate, writing about reading the Good Book for the first time. Now I've come to Israel to see the Bible, to dig it. I've read the stories. Now I want to see where they happened and to learn if they happened—to experience the Bible through archaeology, history, politics, and faith.

This is a similar premise to "Walking the Bible," which contains quite a few passages where Bruce Feiler is wrestling with the lack of historical evidence for major events like the Flood and the Exodus or whether Moses really existed:

The unusual circumstances of this story -- the fact that Moses gets his name from an Egyptian and is raised in the pharaonic court, the fact that he claims not to speak well -- have led many speculate that Moses wasn't an Israelite at all. Sigmund Freud, in his influential book "Moses and Monotheism," says that Moses was an Egyptian who learned monotheism from Akhenaten and was inspired to lead a revolt of foreign slaves out of a desire to overthrow his symbolic father. Freud says Moses gave the slaves the idea that they were a chosen people, which in turn led to anti-Semitism. "It was one man, the man Moses who created the Jews. To him his people owes its tenacity in supporting life; to him, however, it also owes much of the hostility which it has met and is meeting still.

Leaving aside Freud's psychological interpretation, many scholars agree with his underlying thesis, that Moses might have been an Egyptian.

First off, lots of scholars have lots of contradictory theories. This is the academic process. But after reading this, I jumped onto my computer and ordered Jonathan Kirsch's book, "Moses: A Life," which I anticipate will add to the discussion (though in half a year I have yet to crack).

The passage reminded me of Rabbi David Wolpe's famous Passover sermon a few years ago, when he let members of Sinai Temple know that most scholars don't believe the Exodus actually occurred. The declaration dropped on LA Jewry like an A-bomb (little hyperbole intended), thanks to the LA Times, which played the story as a Column One:

Wolpe's startling sermon may have seemed blasphemy to some. In fact, however, the rabbi was merely telling his flock what scholars have known for more than a decade. Slowly and often outside wide public purview, archeologists are radically reshaping modern understanding of the Bible. It was time for his people to know about it, Wolpe decided. After a century of excavations trying to prove the ancient accounts true, archeologists say there is no conclusive evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt, were ever enslaved, ever wandered in the Sinai wilderness for 40 years or ever conquered the land of Canaan under Joshua's leadership. To the contrary, the prevailing view is that most of Joshua's fabled military campaigns never occurred--archeologists have uncovered ash layers and other signs of destruction at the relevant time at only one of the many battlegrounds mentioned in the Bible.

Today, the prevailing theory is that Israel probably emerged peacefully out of Canaan--modern-day Lebanon, southern Syria, Jordan and the West Bank of Israel--whose people are portrayed in the Bible as wicked idolators. Under this theory, the Canaanites took on a new identity as Israelites were perhaps joined or led by a small group of Semites from Egypt--explaining a possible source of the Exodus story, scholars say. As they expanded their settlement, they may have begun to clash with neighbors, perhaps providing the historical nuggets for the conflicts recorded in Joshua and Judges.

"Scholars have known these things for a long time, but we've broken the news very gently," said William Dever, a professor of Near Eastern archeology and anthropology at the University of Arizona and one of America's preeminent archeologists. Dever's view is emblematic of a fundamental shift in archeology. Three decades ago as a Christian seminary student, he wrote a paper defending the Exodus and got an A, but "no one would do that today," he says.

The Jewish Journal followed the next week with a cover package dedicated to Exodus-doubting fallout, including conservative columnist Dennis Prager arguing that no Exodus = no Judaism, just as Christians would say that without the resurrection, Christianity is dead.

But if Christianity is built upon the Torah, upon the stories of Jewish history, does it also need a literal, factual, historical Exodus? And if we the faithful are willing to dismiss some historical findings, what is the value of biblical archeology?

This article was cross-posted at The God Blog.

Posted by Brad Greenberg at January 21, 2008 12:52PM | Comments (15)

David A. Skeel, professor of corporate law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, will soon publish an article in the Emory Law Journal called "The Unbearable Lightness of Christian Legal Scholarship.” In it, he chronicles the scandal of the Christian legal mind:

[T]he scope of Christian legal scholarship in the American legal literature is shockingly narrow for such a nationally influential movement. Why is there almost no trace of the intellectual underpinnings of the recent movement? ... Although evangelicals re-engaged American political life in the 1970s, the skepticism of religious perspectives, and the absence of a critical mass of Christian legal scholarship, lingered. There is now a substantial interest in Christian legal scholarship, but surprisingly little scholarship to turn to.

In that article, which Skeel first wrote in 2006, he acknowledges some counter-evidence, but concludes, "It is still much too early to tell if this new scholarly activity will have a sustained impact on legal scholarship generally, or on internal debate within Christian circles. But it might. In ten years, or possibly even five, this article's laments may come to seem quaint. I pray this is so."

As it turns out, the article may come to seem quaint even before it's published. Skeel has a new paper out claiming

that a real renaissance [of Christian legal scholarship] may finally be underway. Several promising articles have appeared in the law reviews in the past year, and more seem to be on their way. ... There are hints that a new normative Christian legal scholarship may be emerging. The most important illustration is the vibrant literature on international human rights. In domestic law, several scholars have recently asked the question of when and how the law should be used to police morality. ...

It's not surprising that Skeel thinks that Christian legal defense funds "are not a promising seedbed for Christian legal scholarship." Even those groups would be likely to agree that "they are designed to defend Christian positions, rather than to debate or wrestle with the appropriateness of the particular position. This is not a recipe for the kind of intellectual give-and-take that is likely to inspire innovative Christian legal scholarship."

It might be surprising, to some readers at least, that Skeel sees Regent Law School as a sign of hope. He puts the school, which was widely disparaged last year during the Justice Department firings debate, alongside Pepperdine as a "promising development" because of its "willingness to nurture and reward religiously informed scholarship" and its potential to "seriously [engage] the best scholars in their fields." It may be surprising, but only if you believe the caricatures of the school.

Skeel's most provocative assertion is his prediction "that many of the most exciting developments in Christian legal scholarship in the next generation of work will come from outside the domain of traditional philosophical analysis." He likes Alasdair MacIntyre, Alvin Plantinga, and Nick Wolterstorff a lot, and thinks philosophical work is extremely important in Christian legal scholarship. But "underexplored issues and perspectives offer opportunities for exciting new contributions," he says. Likewise, he says,

in the hands of us legal scholars, moral philosophy often becomes a debate about abstract propositions, and never quite gets to the street level business of trying to make sense of how the law actually functions and the lessons that can be learned from this. Rather than abstract propositions, the focus of the coming generation of Christian legal scholars will, I think, more often be on the orientation of the law: does it reflect the God who welcomes back the prodigal son, and who became flesh and dwelt among us?

Thankfully, even in his brief article, Skeel keeps his eyes on that God. He writes, "It is important not to overstate the potential effect of Christian legal scholarship. Law, Christians believe, is not what saves us; only God’s grace can do that." But Skeel grasps how understating scholarship in light of God's transforming work has already damaged the academy, the church, and society. One hopes that the Christian legal scholarship boom is even more vibrant than Skeel sees.

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 21, 2008 10:52AM | Comments (3)

The cover story of The Wall Street Journal's weekend section begins:

On a quiet Sunday morning in June, as worshippers settled into the pews at Allen Baptist Church in southwestern Michigan, Pastor Jason Burrick grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911. When a dispatcher answered, the preacher said a former congregant was in the sanctuary. "And we need to, um, have her out A.S.A.P."

The 71-year-old Karolyn Caskey was arrested and put in jail for returning to the church where she had recently been expelled for spreading "a spirit of cancer and discord" after questioning the pastor. Caskey had tithed regularly during her nearly 50-year membership at the church.

"It was very humiliating," says Mrs. Caskey, who worked for the state of Michigan for 25 years before retiring from the Department of Corrections in 1992. "The other prisoners were surprised to see a little old lady in her church clothes. One of them said, 'You robbed a church?' and I said, 'No, I just attended church.' "

The Journal reports that this "ancient practice" of church discipline is making a comeback. "The revival is part of a broader movement to restore churches to their traditional role as moral enforcers, Christian leaders say. Some say that contemporary churches have grown soft on sinners, citing the rise of suburban megachurches where pastors preach self-affirming messages rather than focusing on sin and redemption."

But I wonder if it isn't just an excuse for heavy-handed leadership. "Last week, the pastor of a 6,000-member megachurch in Nashville, Tenn., threatened to expel 74 members for gossiping and causing disharmony unless they repented. The congregants had sued the pastor for access to the church's financial records."

About 10 - 15 percent of churches discipline in this way, according to the article, but there's no proof to the claim that the practice is rising. It does seem, however, that lawsuits following church discipline may be increasing.

In 2005, CT published a cover package on church discipline, which included the article "Keeping the Lawyers at Bay."

Posted by Rob Moll at January 18, 2008 9:21AM | Comments (15)

The April 2008 issue of the Christian music magazine CCM will be its last, Salem Communications announced late yesterday.

“CCM Magazine readers tell us they want more information and want it faster than can be delivered in a monthly printed magazine," Jim Cumbee, Publisher and President of Non-Broadcast Media said in a press release. "Accordingly, we will discontinue the printed version of CCM Magazine to put increased energies toward the continued growth and enhancement of our comprehensive Christian music and entertainment online network.”

In the May 2007 issue of the magazine, editor Jay Swartzendruber announced that CCM no longer stood for "Contemporary Christian Music." The acronym, he said, stood for "Christ • Community • Music," and the magazine would shift away from covering Christian music by its label or distribution in an effort "to raise the profile of independent and general market artists of faith."

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 17, 2008 1:49PM | Comments (5)

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal ran a full page ad that was an open letter from Pastor Kenneth D. Taylor of Calvary Assembly of God in Algoma, Wisconsin, to the IRS regarding its enforcement of the ban on electioneering activities by tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations as that ban applies to churches. The letter was sponsored by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Here's how the letter begins:

I am the pastor of a small church in northeastern Wisconsin that is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. We're writing today to call your bluff.

The IRS has said for years -- based on what we believe is a mistaken interpretation of the tax code -- that preachers can't support particular political figures or political positions in their sermons.

I'm not going to comment on the theatrics, but I will comment on some of the legal issues the letter discusses. It is true enough that the IRS has said that leaders of any tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization (including, but certainly not limited to, churches) cannot endorse or oppose candidates for elective public office at official organizational events and in official organizational publications. The reason is that the IRS attributes these activities to the organization, rather than the individual, and thus views them as violations of the ban on electioneering that applies to tax-exempt 501(c)(3) entities. But the IRS has not said that preachers cannot support particular political positions in their sermons. Here's some of what the IRS has said on this issue:

Under federal tax law, section 501(c)(3) organizations may take positions on public policy issues, including issues that divide candidates in an election for public office. However, section 501(c)(3) organizations must avoid any issue advocacy that functions as political campaign intervention. Even if a statement does not expressly tell an audience to vote for or against a specific candidate, an organization delivering the statement is at risk of violating the political campaign intervention prohibition if there is any message favoring or opposing a candidate. A statement can identify a candidate not only by stating the candidate’s name but also by other means such as showing a picture of the candidate, referring to political party affiliations, or other distinctive features of a candidate’s platform or biography. All the facts and circumstances need to be considered to determine if the advocacy is political campaign intervention.

Some sensitive issues can arise here, and I have had some criticisms for the IRS in terms of the ways it has handled certain matters in this area. But the flat statement that "[t]he IRS has said for years ... that preachers can't support particular ... political positions in their sermons" in inaccurate.

The letter from Pastor Taylor goes on to say this:

Last election I delivered a sermon based on Matthew 5: 13-16, which tells us that we are the salt of the Earth and the light of the world. ... Unlike many sermons at my church, we did not broadcast this on the radio or television. It was simply a sermon to my own congregation. I did however keep a videotape copy.

I challenge you -- if you still think it's the law -- to investigate what I preached that day...

The Becket Fund has posted some of the video of the sermon here. The problem with the video is that you cannot hear the whole sermon -- "censored" black-out frames pop up at various points throughout the message. This, of course, is an attempt by the Becket Fund to make a point. Again, I'm not going to comment on the theatrics. But I will say that this tactic does not make it easy to have a productive debate around these issues. Further, this kind of thing may have the effect of making pastors believe that the rules prohibit more than they actually do. It's completely fair game to criticize the rules, start a debate about them, and sue over them. But we should be as clear as we possibly can be about what the rules say and don't say, what is up for debate and what is not, so that people have the most reliable information possible and so that the debate focuses on the right issues. (By the way, if you'd like more guidance on these issues, you may find some here and here. I also should note that the letter makes a disparaging reference to Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU). AU's response to the letter is here.)

The Becket Fund apparently believes that at least some of the application of these rules to tax-exempt churches is unconstitutional. I don't have time to address all the relevant issues now, but let me make one note. When the IRS revoked a church's tax-exempt status in 1995 for engaging in prohibited political activities, a church raised similar arguments. But in 2000 a federal appellate court affirmed a lower court's ruling in favor of the IRS in this case, saying that the revocation did not violate the church's free exercise or free speech rights. (Here's a more detailed description of the Branch Ministries v. Rossotti case.) In that case, the court said:

The Church asserts, first, that a revocation [of its tax-exempt status] would threaten its existence. ... The Church maintains that a loss of its tax-exempt status will not only make its members reluctant to contribute the funds essential to its survival, but may obligate the Church itself to pay taxes.

The Church appears to assume that the withdrawal of a conditional privilege for failure to meet the condition is in itself an unconstitutional burden on its free exercise right. This is true, however, only if the receipt of the privilege (in this case the tax exemption) is conditioned "upon conduct proscribed by a religious faith, or ... denie[d] ... because of conduct mandated by religious belief, thereby putting substantial pressure on an adher- ent to modify his behavior and to violate his beliefs." Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, 493 U.S. at 391-92 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)....

The sole effect of the loss of the tax exemption will be to decrease the amount of money available to the Church for its religious practices. The Supreme Court has declared, however, that such a burden "is not constitutionally significant." Id. at 391; see also Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U.S. 680, 700 (1989) (the "contention that an incrementally larger tax burden interferes with [ ] religious activities ... knows no limitation")...

Nor does the Church succeed in its claim that the IRS has violated its First Amendment free speech rights by engaging in viewpoint discrimination. The restrictions imposed by section 501(c)(3) are viewpoint neutral; they prohibit intervention in favor of all candidates for public office by all tax- exempt organizations, regardless of candidate, party, or view- point. Cf. Regan, 461 U.S. at 550-51 (upholding denial of tax deduction for lobbying activities, in spite of allowance of such deduction for veteran's groups).

It seems to me that this judgment is likely to stand. Of course, any organization is always free to forego the tax benefits associated with the 501(c)(3) status and thus be unaffected by the restrictions -- including the ban on electioneering -- that come along with the benefits of that tax-exempt status.

This post originally appeared at Melissa Rogers's religion and public affairs blog. Rogers is visiting professor of religion and public policy at Wake Forest University Divinity School and founder and director of Wake Forest’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs. She previously served as executive director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and as general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty.

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 17, 2008 11:50AM | Comments (6)

Just days before the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we have a new report from the Guttmacher Institute that says the U.S. abortion rate has fallen to its lowest level since 1974. Despite fairly widespread access to the new abortion drug RU-486, the rate now stands at 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women age 15-44 in 2005, down from a high of 29.3 per thousand in 1981. The number of abortions is also down, from 1.6 million in 1990 to 1.2 million in 2005 (the last year for which data are available).

While pro-choice advocates point to a lack of access to abortion providers and the success of comprehensive sex-ed programs as factors in the decline, pro-lifers say state laws have made a difference.

Bill Beckman, director of the Illinois Right to Life Committee, said he sees the national decline in abortion numbers as a victory for anti-abortion efforts.

"A number of states over the last five or six years have enhanced their pro-life laws, such as requirements for informed consent and parental notice," said Beckman. "When those laws take effect, the rate of abortion drops. I think the data they're getting is reflecting that change."

While I'm looking forward to a thorough analysis of the numbers, the answer is probably both/and rather than either/or. I believe that cultural attitudes also are changing, thanks to the persistent efforts (such as the spread of ultrasound machines) of pro-lifers to keep before the American people the undeniable fact that every abortion ends a human life. And these efforts must be working, if even pro-choicer Hillary Clinton concedes that abortion is a "tragic choice."

Perhaps not coincidentally, the Guttmacher study comes on the heels of news that the birth rate is unexpectedly booming in the United States.

An Associated Press review of birth numbers dating to 1909 found the total number of U.S. births was the highest since 1961, near the end of the baby boom. An examination of global data also shows that the United States has a higher fertility rate than every country in continental Europe, as well as Australia, Canada and Japan. ...

Experts believe there is a mix of reasons: a decline in contraceptive use, a drop in access to abortion, poor education and poverty.

There are cultural reasons as well. Hispanics as a group have higher fertility rates — about 40 percent higher than the U.S. overall. And experts say Americans, especially those in middle America, view children more favorably than people in many other Westernized countries.

"Americans like children. We are the only people who respond to prosperity by saying, `Let's have another kid,'" said Nan Marie Astone, associate professor of population, family and reproductive health at Johns Hopkins University.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at January 17, 2008 9:05AM | Comments (7)

Complaints continue over exit polls asking only Republicans whether they are evangelical/born again. The question was omitted again last night in Michigan's Democratic primary. The exit polls, in fact, didn't ask Democrats any religion questions. But it hardly matters: The national Democratic Party says Michigan's votes won't count at the convention because the state moved its primary too early. Obama and Edwards weren't even on the ballot. That's not to say the Democratic exit poll numbers don't have anything to say. More than two-thirds of black voters in the state chose "uncommitted" over Clinton. Pundits are wondering if the Clinton campaign "may have reason to worry about her grasp on the African-American vote." Has the recent squabble over Clinton's comments on Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson hurt?

And speaking of attention-garnering statements, did Huckabee's "change the Constitution" comments hurt him in the Michigan primary? It's hard to tell. Huckabee did see a slight uptick after the comments, but still lost evangelical voters to Mitt Romney. (Exit poll data available from CNN and MSNBC.) Among Republicans who identified themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians, 34 percent voted for Romney, 29 percent voted for Huckabee, and 23 percent voted for McCain. Evangelical turnout was significant: 4 out of 10 Republicans identified themselves as born-again or evangelical. In past polls, about 18 percent of Michigan residents have identified themselves as evangelicals.

Romney took the non-evangelical vote, too, with 39 percent of the vote (McCain had 34 percent, Huckabee a mere 8 percent. Even Ron Paul did better than Huckabee, with 9 percent of the non-evangelical vote). In fact, the only areas where Huckabee did particularly well was with voters who said abortion should illegal in all cases, those who attend church more than weekly (Romney ran away with the weekly attenders, McCain was a clear favorite of the nonattenders), and those for whom the candidate's religious beliefs "matter a great deal."

Romney actually did quite a bit better in Michigan than he has elsewhere among voters who say the candidate's religious beliefs matter somewhat (41 percent vs. 31 percent in New Hampshire and 26 percent in Iowa). Remember that in New Hampshire, the non-born-again Episcopalian-Baptist McCain won the "candidate's religious views matter a great deal" vote. One wonders how people are hearing this question; where are they putting the apostrophe? Are they saying their candidate's religious views matter a great deal? Or are they saying that the other candidates' religious views matter a great deal? Earlier, political analysts were suggesting that Romney's Mormonism might be a liability to his campaign. Now one wonders if Huckabee's religious statements are a liability as well. As CNN's Rebecca Sinderbrand's said, Romney's win might not be the biggest story from the Michigan primary. "[T]he biggest momentum out of Michigan may not go to the winner, but to the story of an election eve comment from third-place Mike Huckabee, still resonating as the contest moves south."

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 16, 2008 7:06AM | Comments (10)

It's the campaign quote of the day:

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

The quote got a bit of play on MSNBC's Morning Joe show this morning:

A provocative statement, certainly. But what does "amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards" mean? Does it mean that the Constitution does not measure up to God's standards? Is the Constitution anti-God? Would the addition of a human life amendment and a federal marriage amendment would make it measure up to God's standards? And is Huckabee suggesting that those who oppose these amendments, say, because of their views on federalism, are trying "to change God's standards"?

I can see how support for a human life amendment and a federal marriage amendment can win votes among some politically conservative evangelicals. But honestly, I'm thinking that this quote probably cost Huckabee more evangelical votes than it won him. The strongest supporters of those amendments have made the case on pragmatic grounds, not theological ones. James Dobson, for example, doesn't say the federal marriage amendment is necessary to bring the Constitution in line with God's standards. He says it's necessary to keep marriage from being redefined legally and culturally.

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 15, 2008 12:58PM | Comments (30)

Perhaps as part of trying to find common ground, Iranian filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh’s Jesus is as blonde as anyone’s, but the ideas behind his film pretty much undercut the Jesus of the Bible, who insisted on his deity, authority, death, and resurrection.

Jesus, the Spirit of God won an award at the 2007 Religion Today Film Festival in Italy.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at January 15, 2008 11:20AM | Comments (3)

Believing that the casualties and violence in Kenya were being grossly underreported, the Kenyan blogging community put together Ushahidi.com. Ushahidi means “witness” in Swahili. The website is mapping out occurrences of violence throughout Kenya, asking witnesses to submit incidents on a detailed form on a computer or by SMS. Kenyan NGOs verify the reports before they are shown on the map.

Erik Hersman, who blogs at WhiteAfrican.com, is trying to get the word out, “In hopes that by reaching out and talking to a broad selection of media more people will hear about it and that the news of Ushahidi will trickle down to the Kenyans who need it most.”

Could this be the future of crisis aid? Through this site, people are not only able to set the record straight about what’s really happening (“There is still a ban in place on live broadcasts related to the election here and this seems to be one way of ensuring that information is not being choked off by the government,” writes one blogger), they’re also able to communicate with those who have the resources to help them. Some recent posts include:

Some displaced families are going hungry. Rowdy mobs are stopping villagers from taking food to the starving women and children whose property has been looted from the tea estates where they were working. These are third generation workers being evicted in retaliatory attacks. Someone should provide enough security so that the villagers can feed these people without fear.

* * *
Yes there is a lot of need specially food, Mosquito nets for those i saw in Oyugis, they dont have food and i was thinking that if we could get some money we can buy some flour and then we transport them there and give them. I used my own tranport money just to look if things have come back to normal in those places and at least there is movements of vehicles although fares is double due to fuel cost which is very high at the moment. . . I want to thank you all for doing this for Kenyans specially when people are really in need. May God bless you all.

Public radio's The World yesterday reported on the website, which went live last Wednesday.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at January 15, 2008 10:19AM | Comments (0)

A recent Time profile called Mars Hill Bible Church pastor Rob Bell "largely apolitical." Is he? The current issue of Relevant asks the question as his state heads to the polls. He answers:

We refer to ourselves [at Mars Hill] as aggressively nonpartisan, so we don’t engage in partisan politics in terms of “Here’s whom you should vote for; here’s whom you should support.” We do acknowledge that the Gospel has deeply political edges to it, but that should not surprise anyone. Jesus was killed because of how He confronted a particular socioeconomic religious system. He’s a first-century Galilean revolutionary who proclaimed a Kingdom other than the kingdom of Herod, so the Gospel does have political edges.

The interest is in giving voice to people who have no voice and using all of our abundance and wealth and resources on behalf of those who have a shortage. Some of our pastors had a meeting with the mayor of [Grand Rapids], which was simply for the purpose of asking who the most forgotten and the most hurting in our city are. They mayor had several very specific answers, and so we’ve actually reorganized a whole area of our church, putting the majority of our efforts around trying to take care of the worst problems in our city. I don’t know if you would say that’s political or not, even though it involved meeting with the mayor, but if Jesus comes to town and things don’t get better, then we have to ask some hard questions.

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 15, 2008 7:58AM | Comments (12)

The Times-Picayune had a lengthy profile last week of Louisiana's new Gov. Bobby Jindal that focused on the India native's conversion to Catholicism and the role that has played in his political ascent.

When Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal converted to Catholicism during high school and college, he took a momentous step away from his inherited faith of Hinduism, the prevalent religion of his parents' generation and Indian homeland.

But among Jindal's relatives and among Hindus in India generally, his decision to adopt the Christian way is strongly supported.

Jindal's personal path to Christianity, which had politically significant ramifications for Louisiana, was aided by an open-minded attitude among his relatives about theology. Also, he visited India infrequently as a child, giving him little chance to acquire the deeply ingrained appreciation for Hindu culture that comes from exposure to daily life in that country.

His relatives' perspective reflects a tolerant side of a religion that for thousands of years has survived philosophical transformations, rebellious counter-religions and numerous sects, only to claim them all in time as part of the infinitely flexible cosmos of Hindu faith.

"If you find and see that you get more peace of mind, more solace, in that religion, then why not change religion?" said Jindal's uncle Subhash Gupta, a practicing Hindu. "In India, many people change to the Christian religion. And I can understand that some people maybe find Christian religion more satisfying to their needs."

(skip)

Although the relatives' opinions might seem magnanimous, their views are typically Hindu. India's large-circulation national newspapers viewed Jindal's election as front-page news, and for the most part his conversion to Catholicism was not commented upon negatively. Indian criticism of Jindal instead has centered on his infrequent visits and seeming lack of interest in his parents' home country.

The Indian national figure Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu so famous his image appears on most Indian currency, espoused religious tolerance because he believed there were many paths to God, so long as an individual was sincere in the pursuit of the divine way.

When asked about Jindal, Pandit Deoki Nandan Shastri, a Hindu holy man in Varanasi, made a similar point.

"Hindu is not a religion," he said. "Hinduism is a way of life."

"You pray to Christ, I pray to Rama, he prays to Mohammad," he said. "We are going the same way. God is one. His name is called a thousand names."

Sadly, such a liberal perspective is not universal in India, where Hindu fundamentalists poignantly remind the world that "religious extremist" is not just a code word for Islamic terrorist. Remember the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom five years ago that left 2,000 people dead, including a woman who's fetus was proudly ripped from her womb by this guy.

The fervency of Hindu nationalism is no secret; it helped gave birth to Pakistan and later Bangladesh. And India has had quite the history of violence against Christians, which sprang up again last month.

On Christmas Eve, violence broke out against Christians in the Kandhamal district of the eastern Indian state of Orissa, which has become well known for poor governance and class tensions. Hindu fundamentalist groups led by the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP, the World Hindu Council) have attacked Christians and their institutions at will in rural areas. Over 90 churches and Christian institutions have been burned and vandalized, over 700 Christian homes destroyed, and the number of pastors and Christians killed is yet to be known, according to a report by my colleagues in the All India Christian Council. A pastor in Chennai told me that 11 pastors have been killed and thousands of Dalit (formerly known as untouchable) Christians displaced. Compass Direct reports that the death count is at 9. Many people are missing, and others have vanished in the nearby forests.

Human Rights Watch and others have decried the present carnage in Orissa and have recognized that freedom of religious choice — especially in a democracy like India's — must be respected. The Prime Minister promised immediate action to restore peace in the state. But the affected areas are still reporting sporadic violence over two weeks since the attacks against Dalit Christians began.

Despite reports that Christians retaliated in some places, so far Dalit Freedom Network investigations and statements by the Orissa government indicate that Maoist rebels — called Naxalites — were behind the revenge attacks that left dozens of Hindu families homeless. Most Naxalites are armed Dalits, and their involvement gives evidence of the root problem: ancient caste divisions.

The author of this article was Joseph D'Souza, whom I interviewed a few months ago for an article about the plight of the Dalits -- who dwell beneath the bottom of India's cast system -- that will appear in the February issue of this magazine.

One of the biggest forms of discrimination meted out by the government is that Dalits who convert to Christianity or Islam lose their welfare eligibility. The same is not true if they converted to Buddhism or Sikhism. This often causes a dual identity.

"They will have their Hindu or pre-Christian indentity, sometimes keeping their Hindu name, because there is affirmative action and if they want to have the benefits of that, they cannot use their Christian name," Robert Eric Frykenberg, professor emeritus of history and South Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin, told me.

This article was cross-posted at The God Blog.

Posted by Brad Greenberg at January 14, 2008 3:36PM | Comments (8)

Fear Itself

Voters are afraid of the future. Should we be?

Stan Guthrie | January 14, 2008 11:46AM

We voters just can’t make up our minds. One day it’s Rudy. Then Huck. Hillary. Then Obama. Then Hillary again. Hey, here’s McCain, risen from the political dead!

Certainly one reason we can’t decide is because no one candidate fulfills all of our hopes and dreams. One has experience (sort of). Another has charisma. One speaks of conservative values but has other issues. Another champions those same values but is a . . . Mormon. Some say the only African-American candidate isn’t black enough, or the only woman candidate not womanly enough. They’re like the old commercial . . . everything you always wanted in a candidate—and less.

Another reason for voters’ fickleness is the economy. If you’re not covered at work, private health insurance is unaffordable for all but the wealthy. Gas and milk cost three bucks a gallon. Economic growth appears to be stagnating, and the growing mortgage crisis is hammering the real estate market and home values. Big-screen TVs and other luxury items aside, according to The Two-Income Trap, it generally takes two incomes to match the standard of living that one income provided a generation ago, and many people feel they are in danger of slipping from the ranks of the middle class.

Americans’ priorities are also in flux early into the primary season. The survey found voters to be in their darkest mood about the economy in 18 years, by some measures; 62 percent said they believed that the economy was getting worse, the highest percentage since the run-up to the recession in 1990. Seventy-five percent said they believed that the country had “seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” also similar to levels in the early 1990s, when such discontent fueled the presidential candidacy of Bill Clinton.

Worries about the economy now dominate the voters’ agenda, even more so than the war in Iraq, which framed the early part of this campaign. While change has emerged as an abstract rallying cry in the campaign debate, what the voters mean when they talk about change is clear — new approaches to the economy and the war, according to the poll.

Whatever their personal or policy differences, nearly all candidates are promising “change” in response to consumer angst. Now as the breadwinner in my family, I can understand those fears, and the desire to latch onto someone who promises to fix my financial problems. Sometimes it does seem as if the big corporations have an unfair advantage over consumers, and it feels good for government to “level the playing field.”

However, despite our present economic uncertainty, is all this worry really justified? The statistics, though troubling, are not as bad as the election-year rhetoric: Joblessness, at around 5 percent (up from 4.4 percent a year ago), remains low by historical levels. Adjusted for inflation (up 4.3 percent last year), gas and milk don’t cost as much relative to our rising incomes as they seem to. Those struggling with “subprime” mortgages, though their pain is real, are a relatively minor percentage of the American people. Despite the considerable challenges we face, the American economy remains the envy of the world.

Every generation worries about the economy (remember the “stagflation” of the seventies?), and while no one knows the future, I would guess that we have less to fear than most generations—even if recession comes. There are many other issues we also must consider, such as the war on terror, peace in the Middle East, abortion, the environment, and other priorities.

Beyond all that, as Christians, we should look at the coming election through the lens of faith, not fear. We are to trust God to provide, not the promises of politicians. As a certain nonpolitical leader once said:

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Thus, whatever the economy brings, we are to be busy doing his work—including helping those who really are struggling—trusting him to provide our needs each day.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at January 14, 2008 11:46AM | Comments (2)

Allah and Mammon

Islamic scholars debate the best way around the ban on interest amid the oil boom.

Rob Moll | January 14, 2008 11:31AM

Capitalism runs on capital. So, what do you do when your religion forbids loaning money, but your economy is flush with cash due to rising oil prices?

Islamic scholars are debating just how to get around the ban on usury, or lending with interest. And a recent ruling by an Islamic scholar has thrown a wrench in what had become accepted practice. The International Herald Tribune reports,

Islamic banking assets outside Iran totaled $400 billion to $450 billion in 2006 and are projected to rise to $1 trillion by 2010, according to a recent report by McKinsey & Co. Total assets, including those in Iran, totaled $750 billion in 2006, a small fraction of global financial assets, but one that is growing quickly.

Experts say growth has been driven by booming Persian Gulf oil revenue, Muslims' growing preference for an expanding range of Shariah-compliant products and increasing acceptance of Islamic banking practices by financial regulators around the world.

Unfortunately for the industry, "one of the world's leading Shariah finance scholars recently rattled the market by saying 85 percent of Islamic bonds, or sukuk, are not Shariah-compliant. Sheik Mohammed Taqi Usmani argued that, in essence, they were structured too much like conventional bonds."

These bonds are structured in a way that gives the lender a share in future profits, but they also include a promise to pay back the original loan. The promise to repay makes the arrangement similar to a traditional bond, Usmani said.

Christians should pay attention to this debate. While the church has long since become comfortable with loaning money with interest, it can be helpful to see another religious group wrestle with modern capitalism. After all, why was it that for centuries Christians forbade usury and then heavily regulated it?

Hmm, maybe the mess created by the sub-prime mortgage lenders has something to do with it.

Posted by Rob Moll at January 14, 2008 11:31AM | Comments (5)

Christian mission at the porn convention

Former stripper and former hooker share the gospel at Vegas' annual adult expo

Brad Greenberg | January 10, 2008 10:53AM

On this Wednesday last year, Brent Hopkins and I drove his Civic (not my Civic) out I-15 to Las Vegas for the annual AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. I am fairly certain that will be the only time I spend 20 hours over two days at a porn convention. My excuse was that I was writing a big story about adult-industry Christian ministries for the LA Daily News' then-upcoming porn series.

I focused on the guys and gals of XXXChurch.com, "the #1 Christian porn site," who are the most prominent of the anti-adult-industry ministries. Another character in this milieu is a former stripper named Heather Veitch, (pictured on left) who runs JC's Girls. I spoke with her last year at her booth, a black backdrop with furry pink accents, that was for some reason located in the gay porn section. She's back in Vegas this week with Hooker for Jesus Annie Lobert, and an LA Times blog gives them some play.

One Vegas topless bar allows Veitch to come at night to buy lap dances and use the time to talk to the dancers about Jesus. I have been invited along for a future trip and am very curious to see how that works out. Veitch says she has received almost no hostility from the people she is trying to reach in Vegas, even those not at all interested in her message.

On the other hand, selling her fellow Christians on her project has been difficult. Veitch has found that some churches are not interested in populating congregations with strippers she has invited to services. And then it always comes back to her look. Veitch says, "The Christian community can be very judgmental. But we think our look lets girls in the industry identify with us."

For the upcoming 40,000-strong Adult Entertainment Expo, Veitch and Lobert will be working the convention floor, handing out cards and delivering their message to whoever will listen.

There is no question that patrons and performers at the porn convention are open to Veitch and XXXChurch and the handful of other ministries. But after watching these interactions, I wasn't sure how effective they were. A lot of people listened, few people turned down the "Jesus Loves Porn Stars" Bibles handed out by XXXChurch, but they seemed to think it was more kitsch than Gospel.

Craig Gross, who runs XXXChurch, told me that people ask him all the time whether he feels like he is making a difference. And at one point he wasn't so sure. In his book The Dirty Little Secret, he writes about a guy who he thought he had helped free from the bondage of porn -- only to find the guy later fly off the deep end.

Some Christians are cynical of Gross and his colleagues, claiming they're a bunch of perverts who want an excuse to cavort with unnaturally endowed women. In a documentary, "Missionary Positions," one of the guys from XXXChurch (I can't remember who) gets smacked by a more fire-and-brimstone preacher who thinks Gross is doing the work of the devil.

I don't buy this. Certainly there are people who want out of the adult business. People like Keri Humble. And knowing that, these ministries just want to be there. Even if there is there.

This article was co-posted at The God Blog.

Posted by Brad Greenberg at January 10, 2008 10:53AM | Comments (10)

The List: EvangelismWatch

The favorite evangelistic websites of evangelist Luis Palau.

Luis Palau | January 10, 2008 10:14AM

The favorite evangelistic websites of evangelist Luis Palau, president of the Luis Palau Association and coauthor of A Friendly Dialogue Between an Atheist and a Christian (Zondervan, 2008).

Need Him
Answers common questions about faith for people in every walk of life. Those who want to begin a relationship with Jesus Christ, or who are interested in learning more, can connect with someone online or through a 24-hour call-in service.

Jesus Central
Credible, powerful, and educational. This impressive website helps people from all cultural and spiritual backgrounds study Jesus of Nazareth, the person. It offers relevant learning for people of all ages, as well as a place to connect and dialogue with others about Jesus.

God Speaks
Presents the Good News of Jesus Christ through stories, testimonies, audio messages, and clearly answered questions about faith. Simple, lucid, and relevant.

Lee Strobel
This website is packed with helpful material, including hundreds of great videos and newsletters. Find answers to your faith questions from more than a dozen top Christian speakers, authors, evangelists, and professors.

The Good News
It’s not flashy, but it’s powerful. This simple website, created in partnership between the Luis Palau Association and Campus Crusade for Christ, uses the Four Spiritual Laws to walk its visitors through the Good News. Best of all, each person who indicates a decision for Jesus Christ is connected via e-mail with a well-trained counselor, who leads him or her through the discipleship process.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at January 10, 2008 10:14AM | Comments (1)

New Hampshire: The polling gets better

After Iowa omission, Democrats are finally asked about religion.

Ted Olsen | January 8, 2008 7:26PM

This was supposed to be the year the Democrats got religion. Too bad somebody forgot to tell the pollsters. One of the big untold stories of the Iowa caucus is that only Republicans were asked about their religious affiliation.

The problem isn't just that we don't know how many Iowan evangelicals voted for the various Democrats (it would be interesting to see, for example, if Edwards scored as well among evangelicals as he did among conservatives). The problem is that we don't know whether Democrats as a whole have succeeded in attracting more evangelical voters. (Usually somewhere between one quarter and one third of evangelicals vote Democratic.) I'm told we'll see some Iowa caucus poll results soon (not from Edison Media Research, the company that does most of these entrance and exit polls) that may shine some light on the religion questions.

The good news is that Edison Media Research has repented, and today's New Hampshire exit polls (via CNN [Rep | Dem] and MSNBC [Rep | Dem] )had many religion questions for both Republicans and Democrats.

Clinton, it seems, took the moderately religious (those who attend church monthly or a few times a year), while Obama took the devout (weekly attenders) and the nonreligious (those who never attend church). Roman Catholics (the largest religious group among New Hampshire Democrats, with 36% of voters in that primary), overwhelmingly chose Clinton (43%) over Obama (28%). Those who said they had no religion supported Obama (47%) over Clinton (28%), and that formed a remarkable 22 percent of Democratic voters.

Unfortunately, voters in the Democratic primary were not asked if they consider themselves evangelical or born again.

Republicans were, and 22 percent said they were evangelical or born again. One third voted for Huckabee, 30 percent voted for McCain, and 24 percent supported Romney. But McCain had a very strong showing among among those who said they were not evangelical: 38 percent. (Romney had 32 percent, Huckabee 7 percent).

It's helpful to compare the evangelical numbers with the political identification numbers. As usual, the evangelical Republican vote was not synonymous with the "very conservative" Republican vote. One of five voters in the Republican primary identified themselves as very conservative, and they went overwhelmingly to Romney: 42 percent (compared to 21 percent for Huckabee and 19 percent for McCain). The Arizona senator scored highest in all other political identification categories.

Anyone care to interpret McCain's winning the "candidate's religious views matter a great deal" vote? Can voters even describe McCain's religious views?

Posted by Ted Olsen at January 8, 2008 7:26PM | Comments (4)

One of the NFL’s classiest steps down

Redskins coach Joe Gibbs, a Christian, retires to spend more time with family.

Mark Moring | January 8, 2008 2:21PM

Despite his inability to find the old coaching magic that led the Washington Redskins to three Super Bowl crowns from 1982-91, Joe Gibbs will always be remembered as one of the classiest guys to ever grace an NFL sideline.

Gibbs, a devout Christian, announced his retirement Tuesday as the Redskins head coach and president, just three days after Washington lost its first-round playoff game at Seattle. His decision, with one year left on a five-year contract, stunned the team.

In a press conference at Redskins complex, Gibbs said that family commitments—including a 3-year-old grandson being treated for leukemia—led to his decision.

“My family situation has dramatically changed [in recent years],” Gibbs said. “The only way to do this job [as an NFL coach] is to go after it night and day; it takes every minute. Having weighed that . . . I felt like with my family, the most important thing I’ll leave on this earth are my kids, grandkids, and the influence I have on others. I felt like my family needed me.”

(Watch Gibbs’ Tuesday afternoon announcement at Redskins.com.)

It was a difficult season for Gibbs and the team, who struggled on and off the field—especially with the November murder of defensive star Sean Taylor—before rallying for four straight wins to make the playoffs. Alas, the playoff loss to Seattle ended what many had hoped would be a “Hollywood ending” for the team from the nation’s capital.

Gibbs, 67, has a dual reputation as a committed family and as a hard worker who spent long hours at the team complex—away from his family—during the season. But his retirement clearly shows he has decided to put family first.

“It was the toughest (season) for me,” Gibbs said Monday, a day before announcing his retirement. “When you go through a season like that, for a while it’s hard to regrasp reality.”

The reality was that in the last four years—his second stint as the Skins’ skipper—Gibbs was unable to lead the team to the dominance it had enjoyed in his first stint from 1981-92, when Washington went 124-60 and won Super Bowls in 1982, ’87, and ’91. Gibbs retired in 1992 to turn his attention to auto racing, where he co-owns a team featuring NASCAR stars Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch. Gibbs vowed to never return to the NFL, and in 1996, he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Redskins floundered for years as owner Dan Snyder went through six coaches and hundreds of players in search of a winning formula. Snyder ultimately turned back to Gibbs in 2004, offering $27.5 million and for a five-year deal to coax him out of retirement. Gibbs signed on, and while the team improved in the last four years, they never regained their dominance of the 1980s, going 31-36 and 1-2 in the playoffs.

But as a longtime Redskins fan, I know that the “reality” for Gibbs involved more than just numbers. He will be remembered not just as a great coach, but as a terrific leader and mentor to his many players over the years. Yes, they’ll remember how he made them better football players. But they’ll also remember how he made them better men.

Mark Moring grew up in Virginia, where it’s almost mandatory to be a Washington Redskins fan. He is editor of ChristianityTodayMovies.com.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at January 8, 2008 2:21PM | Comments (0)

The Church M.B.A.

Villanova launches a business degree for clergy.

Rob Moll | January 8, 2008 1:58PM

The Wall Street Journal today interviewed Charles Zech, director of the Center for the Study of Church M